COOL HARVEST
Join New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light’s Cool Harvest Campaign!
Most of the food Americans eat travels between 1200 and 1500 miles to reach their dinner plates. Reduce your carbon footprint by choosing food that is locally grown whenever you can. You can find many foods that come from right here in New Mexico, including our state vegetables – pinto beans and chiles.
Other local items include fruits (apples, apricots, blackberries, grapes, peaches, pears plums, quinces, raspberries, rhubarb), other vegetables (too many to name!), herbs, milk and cream, eggs, cheese, meats, honey, peanuts, pecans, piñon, pistachios, wheat flour, corn meal, and even balsalmic vinegar!
In the summer and autumn months, you’ll find an amazing selection of produce raised without pesticides or chemical fertilizers at the grower’s markets around the state. Even during the winter, some grower’s markets are held once a month. For a list of grower’s markets in New Mexico, along with their dates and hours of operation, go to farmersmarketsnm.org.
An excellent place to buy local products is La Montañita Co-op, in Nob Hill and on Rio Grande Blvd. The co-op carries many products that are mentioned above and offers discounts to its members. Or, you can contact local farmers through localharvest.org.
For locally raised meats and poultry, consult eatwild.com.
Or, you can eat even more locally by planting a garden, raising chickens (visit urbanchickens.org) or become a beekeper with help from abqbeeks.ning.com.
Eat better, support local businesses, and combat climate change!
Or, try “Meatless Mondays”
Reduce your CO2 footprint by putting more locally grown products on your dinner plate and by reducing the amount of meat you eat. Older readers may remember the meatless and wheatless restrictions that food rationing required during World War II. Now, consider going meatless one day a week for your health and the health of the planet. Visit meatlessmonday.com which partners with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to provide recipes for delicious meatless meals. Consider adopting a vegetarian diet as your Lenten discipline and as your contribution to combating climate change.
Heirloom Seed Collections
These heirloom seed collections were selected by Interfaith Power & Light for their “climate-hardy” attributes. The organic seeds in both kits are vigorous varieties that are highly productive, flavorful and nutritious.